


you like spices, and sacrifices

by Radiolaria



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Casual Sex, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Katrina Cornwell/Original Universe Gabriel Lorca (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 14:54:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19929895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: Not a fear of commitment.A fear of whatever this impossibility to understand what could not work between them was hiding. A fear of failure in the face of a task that should be easy, comfortable. Caring for Philippa was desperately easy. Katrina was not bloody going to psychoanalyze herself into or out of a proper relationship, be it fuck buddies or soul mates.Philippa and Katrina; scenes from the third, hundredth time they fell into each other's arms.





	you like spices, and sacrifices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Persiflage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/gifts).



> Title from Klô Pelgag's song _Maladies de coeur_.
> 
> So this is... something. It started as a bantery one-shot as an answer to a comment from [Persiflage](). It got complicated, despite being completed impressingly quickly by my standards. I hope you still like it!

Admiral Djebar was laughing on their way out of Katrina’s quarters, a burst of genial, charming laughter prompted by Philippa’s parting joke and that resonated in the corridors long after the doors had closed. Her back to the door, Katrina stood straight despite the informal nature of the admiral’s visit and the pleasant forty minutes spent between the three of them.

Philippa was already lounging on the sofa, attractively posed, impish eyes set on Katrina.

“Are we doing this again, _Pippa_?” Katrina scolded as she slowly walked back into the living area.

Philippa tsked. “You know I hate that nickname.”

“You know I hate when you do this,” Katrina noted as she took a seat at the other end of the couch.

“Having a good time with you?”

Katrina sighed and leaned onto her knees, looking pointedly at Philippa.

“Being _charming_.”

“Oh, come on, Kat.”

Katrina raised an eyebrow at Philippa’s artful pout, the fancy kind that she elected for Katrina only, and perhaps a few other high-ranked officials.

Yes, _artful_ was accurate.

It always started like this, didn’t it?

The banter and stories, always walking the line between mundanity and excitement. Philippa nodding, humming appreciatively as Katrina absently conversed. Talking shop as if they could not help it, as if it was not as boring as it sounded. Katrina cracking a smile —she knew the one, she just could never watch it on her own face —, beckoning Philippa closer and reprimanding her dryly. Oh, Katrina’s wit was just as artful as Philippa’s smile, when she let it.

Katrina was always tracing the curve of Philippa’s jaw before Philippa could quip back.

Philippa leaned in close, looked at her mouth and nipped, cocky. Katrina surged, pressing for tenderness, finding it yielding as expected. The taste of her was familiar, annoying against her tongue.

They parted. Katrina’s hand was under Philippa’s shirt.

“Am I sleeping with you tonight?” Philippa asked smugly.

Katrina pulled her up from the couch and guided her toward the bed.

“I won’t hold that against you.”

Philippa laughed and, pressed flushed against Katrina as she was, the movement made them both struggle for balance, until Philippa sat her resolutely on the bed, hands on her hips, and started removing their clothes.

“You should,” she retorted. “It would give me an excuse to work on my penance. Don’t you think?”

By way of an answer, Katrina brushed the hair back off her neck and pressed her lips at the birth of her nape; Philippa’s breath came short, staggering against her ear.

It never worked though.

Friends; more and less. Sex; arguably. Katrina could never work out why.

With Gabe at least the intimacy brought her… something. With Philippa, it always devolved into deconstructing why they could never work; maddening mechanics. Gabe was uncomplicated in his complexity; Philippa was complicated in her simplicity… That old affection thing worked so well with Gabe, and with Philippa…

Katrina swallowed her moan when Philippa’s teeth grazed against the lower part of her abdomen, just above the waistband of her underwear. Soon artfully removed and tossed aside. Philippa did plenty of things artfully.

Gabe.

Philippa.

Perhaps if Katrina wasn’t so busy comparing them, she would take a minute to consider why she was putting them back to back at every moment.

Gabe was the one she could never invest in because too much water under the bridge, too much “later, of course”, too much… whatever the hell. It did not matter. Her daughter lampooned her for it, continually. It was common knowledge that Katrina would do that and more for Gabe, even when it meant not committing, not defining, dodging again and again.

It was fine.

Katrina knew how the mind worked, how flexible she could be about people’s idiosyncrasies, so _anything goes_ , really.

Philippa did not make sense like Gabe did. Not when Katrina experienced unmatched fantasies about her friend. Phil’s hand in her hair, pulling delectably while she worked her wet. Whimpering into her neck as Katrina tweaked her nipple fastidiously. Her strength. Katrina’s leisurely pace. Her cries.

In reality, she was waiting for the moment she could come back to that fantasy.

“Kat…”

Naked, ravenous, Philippa was pressing her body against hers, with such elegance still, and Katrina despised her a little for this.

She didn’t know why it annoyed her so, the beauty of the performance between them.

Long flowing waves, trickling on her skin, tingling. Beautiful words that were only just boring, used, in retrospect. Philippa’s thigh raking across her heat, and Katrina would cry her name with genuine affection.

Philippa would drag such sentimentality out of her.

The tragedy was that they never could find in each other something worth clinging to, something worth seeing grow. Perhaps, tragedy was too strong a notion. Yet, it had all the frustrating characteristics, the hubris, the deaths, the fool, the… catharsis.

And then they were like old friends, flirting socially, complaining about assignments and officers and general orders. Nothing would happen, even when it did. She didn’t even enjoy their friendship more than she would the sex.

Sex buddies, but without the buddy part when actual sex happened.

Sex baseball and bat.

Brief, intense and then back into the closet.

Katrina rolled her hips against Philippa’s hand, eyes closed, the weight of Philippa’s duteous gaze on her as heavy as her body. The pressure was building in her lower belly, long, mastered.

“You are so beautiful, Kat,” Philippa whispered above her.

Kat opened her eyes just in time to see the reverent smile fading off her lips, that soft glaze dying in her dark eyes.

She chortled and creased her nose, hoping to catch it again.

“And you—you’re getting too used to me,” Katrina breathed.

The quirk of Philipa’s mouth was merciless. She changed the direction of her ministrations, and Katrina arched into her body, brutally.

“I hope so,” Philippa rasped.

They were adults about it never growing into something more. This was how it happened. Simply.

Fantastic sex aside, they were friends, fond, distant but present —shared memories, shared intelligence of the world. They never pretended they were each other’s rock, like she did with Gabe, like Phil confessed she did with Helen. Philippa was interested in her work, Kat in hers. It was enjoyable to exchange with her, to confide about some things that weren’t going so well, in her life, in her mind. Philippa could be a remarkable listener, when she wasn’t standing straight in her boots, when she wasn’t keeping guard above her, sawing strategies around whatever moral misgiving she was experiencing.

And when she wasn’t trying to fuck Katrina.

 _Bat. Ball._ Katrina never wanted her to stop anyway.

“Anything I can do to help, Kat?”

A groan escaped her lips, unintelligible to her ears, before she could form the words.

“Inside, Phil.”

This time her tone carried a soft plea, and Philippa pressed a kiss to her collarbone before complying.

After a while, it became easier to pretend she was irritated by Philippa trying to start something. She could not understand why she let it happen each time, why it stopped as it did, why it turned her on so much.

It was galling. Perhaps in another universe, Kat would understand, would even kiss her and not stop; unzip the tight uniform, remove her jacket, her insignia, and make love to her.

Something something. Giving control back. Opening oneself to vulnerability and hurt. Kissing Philippa and not wishing she could regret it. Not regretting it. Wishing.

As if she enjoyed Philippa being someone not exactly right for her.

The intricacies of her desire. That she could never deal with on a daily basis, let alone on a _holo-me-tomorrow-at-nine-oh-fifteen-after-my-shift_ basis. She was fond of Philippa when they weren’t having sex.

But they kept having sex.

Head pillowed on her heaving chest, Philippa traced lazy patterns across Katrina’s ribs as she recovered.

Katrina looked at her from under her lids, trying to hang onto the moment. The blissful simplicity of Philippa’s proximity should have been enough. Her mind was already getting ahead of her.

“Is it time for me to pin you to the bed?”

Philippa rolled her eyes, but shifted on her back, inviting.

“You say such romantic things,” she cooed, half in jest.

But after Katrina teased her into a state of whimpering fury, Philippa’s strained call of her name, her neck stretched in a sob, her fingers digging into Katrina’s back became too much.

It became too much for almost two hours when she came again and again at Philippa’s hands. 

Philippa acted in absolutes like others talked in them, and it scared the shit out of Katrina. Part of her aspired to be like Philippa, the way she could offer herself as sacrifice to make things work and save everyone. The shrink in her knew building anything with her would have been setting herself for slaughter, given her natural inclinations. The devotion Philippa had a tendency to inspire wasn’t a gamble Katrina had ever been willing to make, even younger when all Katrina could think about was how beautiful Lieutenant Philippa would look as the woman waking up next to her every morning, even when they weren’t on opposite sides of the higher ranks of command structure.

Not a fear of commitment.

A fear of whatever this impossibility to understand what could not work between them was hiding. A fear of failure in the face of a task that should be easy, comfortable. Caring for Philippa was desperately easy. Katrina was not bloody going to psychoanalyze herself into or out of a proper relationship, be it fuck buddies or soul mates.

“Will you wait another year?” Philippa asked from the crook of her elbow, lying spent on her stomach beside her.

Cold, Katrina had draped her shoulders in the discarded jacket. The comforter was under them, disturbed but still in place.

Her face broke into a smile, apologetic.

“Give me two years, maybe.”

Philippa snorted at that and craned her neck to kiss Katrina’s cheek. Involuntarily, her hand flew to the small of Philippa’s back and landed on her scar.

Katrina’s eyes fell shut.

If only Philippa was more selfish, more threatening, more unpredictable...

If Katrina was someone different. But she could never make that decision to change or compromise for Philippa, so she left it at that. _Decided_ to leave it at that. She had so much work, so much responsibility and guilt beside that decision. Her hair was lighter when she took it, almost dark blonde, back in the days, fresh out of the Academy; she also left the hair at that and by the time her color had turned dark with age, she had been married twice, had two very sarcastic daughters and Philippa was kissing her again and again.

Her gray hairs weren’t named after Philippa, but she damn well crashed the party on their name day.

When they parted, Katrina whispered her name as if for once she would have the time to come up with a proper reason not to do it again. Right there.

Time —that was the thing with Philippa. She had an eternity of it.

Anything goes, right?


End file.
